Zero-knowledge scaling firm StarkWare has launched Personal KYC on Starknet, enabling customers to finish know-your-customer necessities with out revealing their full private info.
The system, introduced Tuesday as a demo, makes use of STRK20 privateness options and zero-knowledge STARK proofs to let customers show particular attributes, similar to being older than 18 or holding legitimate credentials, with out revealing their full passport particulars or handle.
“Whether or not it is advisable to show you’re over 18, maintain a legitimate credential or meet an eligibility rule, verification ought to solely affirm the exact reality,” StarkWare stated. Firms shouldn’t gather the complete id behind it, “as a result of each id database turns into a legal responsibility the second it exists.”
KYC compliance entails handing over private info and trusting firms to maintain it protected. The rollout comes because the US hit a document 3,322 information compromises in 2025, a 79% improve over 5 years, and the worldwide common price of an information breach is $4.4 million, in accordance to StationX.
StarkWare customers begin by scanning their passport on their telephones, utilizing the digital camera and NFC chip to learn and make sure the doc is real and signed by its issuing authority.
They will then encrypt id information to their Starknet pockets, register attributes in a public onchain registry, and submit zero-knowledge proofs for selective checks. Verifiers can affirm eligibility by studying the general public registry with out ever seeing the precise id information.
Associated: Privateness push as StarkWare and Sui transfer towards compliance-ready confidential transfers
“Personal KYC reveals that verification and privateness aren’t a trade-off,” StarkWare stated. “An establishment can affirm precisely what it wants with out assembling one other copy of somebody’s id it then has to defend.”
Contracts examine the proofs, not the passports. Supply: StarkWare
“Identification checks in the present day ask on your entire doc once they solely want one reality,” the Starknet staff stated.
The system is much like Sam Altman’s World ID (Worldcoin), which makes use of zk-proofs to confirm humanness through iris scans on {hardware} orbs. Nonetheless, World ID confronted backlash over centralized biometric custody, whereas StarkWare’s self-custody mannequin goals to deal with that challenge.
Knowledge breaches price thousands and thousands
In keeping with Axis Intelligence, greater than 1 billion well being care data have been breached, with a median price of $7.42 million, as of 2026. Within the US, 772 massive well being care information breaches have been confirmed in 2025, the best annual complete ever recorded.
The most important and most damaging information breach within the crypto trade occurred at {hardware} pockets supplier Ledger, which suffered a large database hack in 2020, ensuing within the leak of greater than 270,000 buyer data and a wave of phishing assaults that proceed to at the present time.
Journal: Japanese pension fund suggestions 1% in crypto, G7 urges motion on NK hackers: Asia Categorical
